MONTREAL — It will be Serena versus Venus in the semifinals at the US$2.44-million women’s Rogers Cup.

The Williams sisters advanced to a 25th career meeting Friday, both rallying from one-set deficits to win their quarter-final matches on the hardcourt at Uniprix Stadium. Serena Williams, 32, has a 14-10 career edge on the 34-year-old Venus Williams and has won the last five head-to-head matches.

“I definitely don’t like playing her,” Serena Williams said. “I think I’ve lost to her more than anyone on the tour, so it’s definitely not a fun match.

“She’s tough. She has a great serve. She runs every ball down. She has a great backhand. She hits winners off the forehand. She does everything well so it’s not an ideal matchup for anyone, to be honest.”

Serena Williams, the defending champion and world’s top-ranked player, extended her Rogers Cup win streak to 14 matches after victories at the 2011 and 2013 events in Toronto. She skipped the 2012 tournament.

Wozniacki, coming off a win at Istanbul, ended an eight-match streak.

The match that lasted two hours 41 minutes saw Wozniacki take control in the first set and build a 2-0 lead in the second before Williams started hitting the lines.

“I was making a lot of unforced errors in general,” said Williams. “But I just thought: ’Just keep fighting. Hopefully I can just hold on and hold on, try to break, keep going for each shot.’

“I just never wanted to stop and tried to do the best that I could.”

She broke service for a 3-2 first-set lead and fought off two break points to close the set.

Williams had a prime chance to break at 2-1 in the second set but hit a soft volley that Wozniacki was able to return. But she came back with a break to make it 4-4 and broke again to even the match.

The third set featured five service breaks, the last giving Williams the win on her third match point.

Williams is now 7-1 all-time against Wozniacki. Williams won at Stanford last week and has won seven straight matches.
But she knew beating Wozniacki wouldn’t be easy.

“Especially when you play someone like Caroline or other opponents, you know your match might be a little longer than normal,” said Williams. “You go in there thinking: ’This is not going to be routine.’ You’re ready.”

Wozniacki was happy with her tournament despite the defeat.

“It was really small things that did it out there today,” she said. “She came up with quite a few big serves when she needed to.

“It could have gone both ways. I had a break in the second set. Didn’t manage to hold on. But I gave it everything I had. It just wasn’t quite enough.”